Category: Parachute Activities

Students in second grade learned the terms legato (smooth and connected), staccato (short and choppy), and learned a new music vocabulary word: slur. A slur is a symbol that looks like an arch, and tells you to connect your notes and sing (or play) legato. We sang a song called Legato Staccato, and then we used scarves to show staccato movements and legato movements while listening to The Syncopated Clockcomposed by Leroy Anderson. The C part is the most fun- whenever the “alarm” goes off, throw your scarf in the air!

We began with this chart:

And finished with this one!

We also discussed the structure of the piece: ABACA with a coda at the end, and the instruments used in the song.

After doing the scarf activity (and of course, folding our scarves during the magical scarf folding music) we made it into a parachute listening activity!

Students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade used our parachute to show the difference between the “verses” and the “chorus” in one of our favorite Thanksgiving songs, “Mashed Potatoes”! Everyone loves this lesson, and the parachute gets all the students to really sing out. Maybe because, as one fifth grader explained the phenomenon, it “the parachute makes us feel jolly!”